“Efficient. Highly efficient.”

“You are not a dragon, you are a demon, a demon from hell.”

Gazing upon the corpses of his clan, their bodies intact but lifeless, the terror of a soul struck by a direct hit overwhelmed the Black Claw leader’s mind. After a few screams, he let out a primitive, fear-filled squeak.

“A demon? How could an ordinary hellish demon even compare to me?”

The Golden Dragon shook its head slightly, correcting the Black Claw leader’s accusation.

However, the mentally shattered Black Claw leader could no longer respond to Saga, which somewhat diminished his amusement.

“To collapse so easily, you vermin, are as cowardly as insects.”

With a slight force of his dragon claw, the Black Claw leader was crushed, his eyes of terror finally resting in peace.

Meanwhile.

The Golden Dragon hovered in the silent void of the hollow, psychic brilliance flashing in its eyes, then it looked down, surveying the surroundings.

In fact, not only Ratmen had perished from the neutron annihilation. Within the range affected by the annihilation, all organic life had ceased, including the Ratmen’s domesticated animals and plants, and the omnipresent mosquitoes and flies that seemed to coexist with Ratmen society. They all died instantly, turning the once noisy hollow into a silent hell.

With these included, the number of creatures that died in an instant was now in the billions.

What does it mean for billions of creatures to die? Even if all of them were gathered together, offering no resistance, and a regular legend had to kill them, if a legend could kill ten thousand with one strike, it would take ten thousand strikes, exhausting the legend completely.

But the release of this neutron annihilation was no more taxing on Saga than a single Annihilation Dragon Breath.

The greatest toll it took was on Saga’s psyche.

In terms of killing life that was not yet powerful, Saga could only describe neutron annihilation as efficient. The current death toll was far from its limit because Saga had carefully controlled the neutron annihilation within this hollow using a large amount of psychic energy. In fact, the full range of the rapidly bursting neutron flood was so vast that even Saga himself was unclear about its limits.

When conceiving the neutron annihilation technique, what took Saga a long time was not how to use it but how to restrain and control it.

If neutron annihilation were to spiral out of control, sweeping wildly, the consequences would be disastrous.

By then, Saga would undoubtedly be hunted and besieged by all the powerhouses of the Saiga Planet.

An uncontrolled neutron annihilation would even affect the Dragon Kind. While adult dragons with their robust bodies might not be greatly harmed, the young dragons out on their own would suffer greatly.

Saga was currently only a legend, not yet a top-tier powerhouse in this world.

But if he were pushed to the brink, in a fit of rage, he could easily take billions of lives with him, not to mention dragging an entire world to its doom.

“Neutron annihilation still has much room for improvement. For instance, targeting a specific species based on its traits, rather than indiscriminately annihilating all life.”

Saga thought silently, gazing around.

Countless intact corpses of creatures covered the hollow, and the traces of death were everywhere.

But with the death of the body, the soul began to break free from its constraints.

Within the psychic vision, Saga could clearly see the semi-transparent souls, invisible to the naked eye, rising in confusion, standing next to their corpses in a daze.

The soul of the Black Claw leader also emerged.

Because it was a legendary creature in life, its soul was more substantial and could even be faintly seen with the naked eye.

Saga made a rough estimate.

With the massive scale of death, the number of soul fragments was countless, and the number of complete sapient being souls was around ten thousand. It took thousands of dead Ratmen to produce one complete soul.

Even among sapient beings, not all would have a complete soul after death.

The probability of retaining a complete soul after death varied among different species.

For superior species like the Dragon Kind, even the death of a Hatchling Dragon would leave a complete dragon soul.

“Not bad, this should be enough to replenish the energy I’ve spent training in the Dragon Soul Sanctuary and even allow for some improvement.”

Saga thought to himself.

Having caused such a horrific number of deaths, he felt no guilt or psychological burden, instead feeling satisfied with his gains.

By the nature of the Red Dragon, there would be no guilt for trampling the weak.

And by the nature of the Golden Dragon, exterminating Ratmen, a species that wreaks havoc everywhere, would not cause any psychological burden either.

In fact, if Ratmen could be completely eradicated, it would be a great boon for both the underground and surface worlds. What Saga had done was considered a ‘good deed.’

Immediately after, Saga took out the Heart of Stone.

Under his control, the Heart of Stone slowly rose, reaching the center of the hollow, then emitted a series of faint glows, forming a vortex with a strong attraction.

Countless soul fragments.

Tens of thousands of complete souls.

At this moment, they were all drawn to the Heart of Stone, uncontrollably entering the vortex.

They instinctively resisted, but the resistance of ordinary souls was negligible. The Heart of Stone had a special affinity for souls. As for the stronger souls, like that of the Black Claw leader…

It stood its ground, resisting the pull of the Heart of Stone without moving.

Then, with a crackle! A bolt of electricity burst from the Golden Dragon’s fingertip, striking the Black Claw leader’s soul on the head, making its body flicker. The semi-transparent soul shimmered like a faulty light bulb, then could no longer resist and was sucked into the Heart of Stone.

Tens of thousands of Ratmen souls, unaware of their fate, were drawn into the Dragon Soul Sanctuary.

Upon regaining their senses, they looked around in confusion and fear.

Then, suddenly, the sky darkened.

A myriad of dragons of various shapes and sizes blocked out the sun, eyeing the newly arrived Ratmen souls in the Dragon Soul Sanctuary with different gazes. After a few glances at each other, they revealed smiles that didn’t seem too friendly in the eyes of the Ratmen.

Without a doubt.

For the dragons who had lived in the Dragon Soul Sanctuary for countless years without new toys, these newly arrived Ratmen would be excellent playthings.

As the number of souls increased and soul fragments were absorbed, the space of the Dragon Soul Sanctuary became more stable, its boundaries extending further, and the aura of each dragon’s remnant within it was subtly strengthened.

Outside, Saga, as the master of the Dragon Soul Sanctuary, keenly felt this change.

With a thought, he expended some soul energy, and the Dragon Soul Sanctuary began to churn.

In the Dragon Soul Sanctuary, which had previously only had plains, towering volcanoes and glaciers rose abruptly, crisscrossing, and lush forests, deep swamps, and sunken basins also rapidly emerged.

After a vast, crystal-clear lake formed, the transformation of the unrecognizable Dragon Soul Sanctuary came to an abrupt halt.

The energy obtained from the soul fragments had been completely depleted.

As for the energy generated by complete souls, the Ratmen souls being tormented and played with by the dragons were indeed generating a significant amount of soul energy due to their intense emotional fluctuations. However, this was a long-term process, and the short-term supply was not enough for Saga to whimsically transform the Dragon Soul Sanctuary.

“To turn the Dragon Soul Sanctuary into a world-class realm, who knows how much soul energy would be needed.”

Saga shook his head.

He wasn’t discouraged and immediately set his sights on another hollow—the one that had been occupied by the Black Claw clan not long ago, formerly the domain of the Evil Tooth clan.

Then.

Under the gaze of the Ratmen within the hollow, the sky-covering Golden Dragon flapped its wings and descended like the grim reaper, coldly and mercilessly wielding the ‘neutron scythe’ to reap lives and create death.

If any sapient being could witness and spread this scene…

Saga would definitely be dubbed ‘Death’s Wing,’ for the number of lives he extinguished in an instant was unimaginable even for the most vicious and bloodthirsty legendary creatures.

Now.

Two large hollows, once noisy and chaotic under the occupation of Ratmen clans, had become quiet, even a bit eerily silent.

Saga hung upside down from the ceiling of the hollow, quietly waiting for the Heart of Stone to absorb all the souls.

After all the souls were drawn into the Dragon Soul Sanctuary, Saga put away the now even more transparent and crystal-clear Heart of Stone, like a top-quality crystal.

“So many Ratmen dead. These corpses are somewhat difficult to deal with.”

Saga frowned.

When he had killed hundreds of thousands of Ratmen on the surface, the aftermath of handling the corpses had kept the Gemstone Dragon and its kin busy for a long time.

The two hollows combined covered at least several hundred million square kilometers, and there were billions of Ratmen corpses.

Even if he called all his kin from the Near Seas, it would be difficult to dispose of them.

“But Ratmen release plague after death, and so many corpses, if left unattended, would turn both hollows into realms of death, and who knows how many years it would take to slowly recover.”

Saga wanted to claim these two hollows as his foothold in the underground world.

These Ratmen corpses had become his trouble.

The Ratmen themselves probably never imagined that in life they died carelessly, but in death, they caused trouble for the very dragon that killed them.

It’s just a pity that this trouble wasn’t much of an issue.

Saga’s eyes closed slightly, his mind quieting down as he searched through the dragon’s heritage for a suitable method to handle the Ratmen corpses.

A few minutes later, the Golden Dragon opened its eyes, bright and clear.

“It turns out the suitable creature to handle Ratmen corpses has been right in front of me all along.”

Saga flapped his dragon wings, leaving the hollow and merging into the rock, traveling in a straight line at an extremely fast speed.

Soon, he arrived at a familiar place.

A fungal colony stone cave filled with various colorful fungi and mushroom people.

Sensing the presence of an outsider, mushroom heads popped up like bamboo shoots after rain. Upon seeing the Golden Dragon return, they immediately surrounded the benign behemoth with enthusiasm, offering usable fungi and spring water as a welcome.

In the underground stone cave lit by luminescent fungi.

Colorful little mushroom people and the Golden Dragon that they surrounded formed a harmonious and beautiful composition.

It was hard to imagine that the Golden Dragon, which was now cheerfully shaking its mushroom head among the mushroom people, was the same terrifying entity that had just caused the deaths of billions of lives.

Without the need for the mushroom king’s mycelium to extend over.

Saga’s voice directly echoed in the mushroom king’s mind, establishing a telepathic command. His psychic prowess wasn’t to be underestimated; he could directly use telepathic command without relying on any external medium.

“The Ratmen will no longer trouble you.”

Saga stated directly.

The mushroom king was slightly taken aback and asked in confusion:

“Mr. Dragon, you just left. Um… less than a light hour ago.”

The concept of time among the creatures of the underground world was generally poor, but some did have a sense of time. They used the interval between the dimming and brightening of a special luminescent mineral as a light hour, roughly equivalent to the alternation of day and night in the outer world.

“I always operate with high efficiency.”

Before the mushroom king could ask further, Saga inquired: “I’ve heard that mushroom people can spread carnivorous spores that parasitize on the corpses of creatures to breed the next generation or to cultivate fungi, or to draw nutrients to strengthen themselves. And your spores can even consume the plague-ridden corpses of Ratmen, right?”

The mushroom king’s mushroom head wobbled.

“Yes, that’s right.”

After receiving an affirmative answer, the dragon’s tone rose as it said: “Notify all the mushroom people clans you know to prepare for a Ratmen feast.”

The underground world has its own ecological cycle.

Mushroom people are considered the bottom layer of the underground world, diligent producers of edible fungi and also decomposers of corpses. They rarely acquire corpses on their own because other underground creatures, seeking more edible fungi, would actively bring corpses to the mushroom people.

Being fed corpses was a common occurrence.

The mushroom king wasn’t too surprised and after some thought, said:

“Mr. Dragon, the number of spores a single mushroom person can spread, given enough time, can consume at least a thousand Ratmen corpses.”

“If there aren’t many Ratmen corpses, there’s no need to contact other mushroom people clans; our clan can handle it.”

Without explanation, Saga conveyed an image to the mushroom king through telepathic command.

The sight of Ratmen corpses spread across the hollow like a black carpet, seemingly endless, silenced the mushroom king. Even the slow-thinking, oblivious mushroom people felt an indescribable sensation from this scene of deathly stillness.

“There are two such hollows, can your clan handle them?”

“I will try to notify more mushroom people clans to come.”

The mushroom king gave such a reply.

After hesitating for a moment, it asked weakly:

“Mr. Dragon, did you cause the deaths of these Ratmen?”

“Yes, is there a problem?”

“No, no problem. The death of the Ratmen is good for all underground creatures, it’s just that it seems… unbelievable.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I just happen to have a little rodent extermination method.”

The dragon claw gently patted the trembling mushroom head, and the Golden Dragon said kindly.

“Don’t overthink it, get ready to enjoy your feast.”

“By the way, lucky little one, there will probably be many more such feasts in the future. Your mushroom people clan is in for a treat.”